"I was playing pick-up in the gym. It was probably late August. John Bagley was there. Wes Matthews was there. I happened to look at the doors toward the lobby and I saw this chest and legs in one of the windows. This giant lowered himself through the door and unfolded himself on the other side. Looking up, all I could think was `Holy (expletive).'" -- John Mullin

BRIDGEPORT -- That was basically everyone's reaction the first time they saw Manute Bol.

Standing 7-foot-7, Bol was the tallest human being people had ever seen. Arriving in P.T. Barnum's hometown in late August of 1984 from Sudan, Bol quickly became the circus act to end all circus acts. He took the entire city by storm and for one glorious season, the University of Bridgeport often was the center of the college basketball world, winning 26 games and playing in front of sold-out crowds all across the Northeast.

And while 30 years have passed since that incredible season, the memories of Manute -- who died at the age of 47 from complications from Stevens-Johnson syndrome in 2010 -- have never faded away. In fact, many are just as clear -- and as funny -- as they were when they first happened.

"It was a hell of a ride the rest of the way that year," said Mullin, a freshman guard that season. "Every day was a lot of fun. He was very competitive and was a great guy. Friendly and outgoing. We used to sit in the dining hall for hours after practice just talking. The season was unbelievable, everywhere we went, for a Division II school. Selling out every game was a neat experience."

The Purple Knights went 26-6 and reached the finals of the NCAA Division II New England Regionals, losing a heartbreaking 47-45 slowdown game to Park Avenue rival Sacred Heart. Bol averaged 22.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 7.1 blocks for UB before leaving after his freshman season for the NBA. And what Bol did on the court was incredible in itself, but what he did off the court is why he's still remembered so fondly to this day.

"He was like a bolt of lightning, you know? A comet and it was incredible that I was able to spend that year with him," said Terry Quinn, a junior forward on that 1984-85 team. "I didn't play my senior year because I didn't think it could get any better. I wanted to go out on top and what better way to go. That truly was a phenomenal year."

The circus starts

Ken Best had been on the job as director of public information at the University of Bridgeport for just about a year. He really hadn't had any dealings with the athletic department until basketball coach Bruce Webster called him out of the blue. Webster said that he had a new player who "could make some noise" and they needed to have a news conference.

"So I went over to the Hub and Bruce is telling me, `Let's go into the gym,' because I came in through the back door where the row of offices is (in the rear of Harvey Hubbell Gymnasium). And I look in there and there are these guys playing and there's the biggest guy I've even seen. I was stunned," said Best, who also became the radio play-by-play voice for UB basketball that season for WPKN-FM. "I said, `What do you want to do?' And Bruce says, `I think we need to have a press conference.' So I started thinking about what we could do.

"We decided to put him at the podium under one of the baskets, because we wanted to show his size in relation to the baskets ... that's what we did."

A major reason Bol decided to come to UB was that the school had a English language/cultural studies major, and he needed to improve his English. And when Manute arrived from the Sudan, he literally arrived with the clothes on his back and nothing more, according to Walt Doburz, president of Webster's "Court Club" and the color commentator on radio with Best.

"They showed up that first day with literally nothing. They had nothing. No food, nothing," Doburz said. "So Bruce and I and Manute -- we were possibly breaking every NCAA rule at the time -- went down Park Avenue to the King Cole store to buy him food, and when we walked in, the building just stopped. We're walking around and we asked Manute what he wanted to eat and Manute said `grapes' and we're looking around and we can't see any grapes or anything. And as it turns out, Manute is looking over the tops of the shelves at the grapes that were, like, two aisles over. He just was incredible."

It didn't take long for the word to spread about Bol's arrival at UB. Just about every television station in New York City sent crews to interview Manute. Major magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Sporting News sent reporters for stories, and so did just about every major newspaper in the country.

Pretty soon, the rest of the world all found out.

"The story never left for that whole year," Best said. "I would get calls at home at night from overseas from like the French Television Network and other European agencies looking to find out about Manute and how could they get someone to Connecticut to do a story. We finally gave one day a week for media. In the Harvey Hubbell Gym, there was literally no side space, so we set up a double-stacked table row under the basket so we could handle the media requests. It was really crazy."

One of the best TV stories involved a young female reporter from NBC who came up to talk to Manute. Bol was eating over at Famous Pizza with Webster, Quinn, Mark Faraci and John O'Reilly when the reporter and her cameraman got there.

Bol wanted no part of an interview.

"I think it was Quinn who said, `Manute, you have to talk to her. She's from NBC, that's the network that airs your favorite show, the A-Team,'" said O'Reilly, a junior guard. "Now, Manute gets all happy and says that he'll talk on one condition, that she's goes to his room and fixes his TV because the picture's bad. She went back to his room and adjusted the rabbit ears with her cameraman, and then she got the interview. He always knew just what buttons to push."

And just what to say. One other story that still makes the rounds today involves several players walking out of Famous Pizza and making their way back down Park Avenue toward campus when a guy stepped out of the shadows with a knife demanding money.

"He pulls the knife on us and we all kind of took a step back, except Manute, and he goes, `What are you doing?'" Quinn said. "And the guy looks up and sees Manute and Manute defused the whole situation. They start talking and Manute tells him that he could hurt someone or worse, he could hurt himself and that he should try and find a job, and at the end, they shake hands.

"That's how he dealt with things. He had a tremendous amount of courage."

The season

With UB coming off two straight losing seasons, the arrival of Bol sent a fresh jolt of electricity through the team and the campus. Over 1,500 packed the Hub for the Purple-White scrimmage. In his first game against Stonehill, Manute scored 22 points, grabbed 20 rebounds and blocked six shots in a 75-63 win in front of a sold-out crowd of 1,650 at Harvey Hubbell.

"Bruce had ordered a 55-passenger bus because it had that last seat that stretched across both rows, and Manute needed that because his legs were so long, he couldn't sit in a regular seat," Best said. "The wrong bus shows up and now Bruce isn't sure what to do, so he throws (assistant coach) Vinny (Laczowski) his car keys (to take Manute) and says, `Follow the bus.' The team was going to stop at a place in Springfield that was a favorite pre-game meal place called The Student Prince. So we get there, and we're eating and we're waiting on Vinny and Manute. No Manute.

"Now, we're almost getting ready to leave when we see this pair of knees go past this window and it's Manute. Vinny thought he knew how to get to the restaurant but he didn't. So we get Manute some food and we're walking out to the bus because the restaurant is on a side street and the bus is on the main drag and Manute comes walking out of the side street and traffic literally stops as he walks down the street. No one had ever seen anyone that big before."

Bol had 15-block games against Bryant and Sacred Heart, 12-block games against Quinnipiac and Southern Connecticut and 10 blocks in his last game against Bentley. He had six triple-doubles (points, rebounds, blocks) with perhaps his best game of 19 points, 13 rebounds and 15 blocks coming in a 70-64 win over the Pioneers at the Hub.

"To have someone that size playing Division II ... he had great hand-eye coordination and he had a nice (shooting) touch and he really had some great skills," Mullin said. "At times it was comical to watch (opponents) test him attacking the middle. They didn't believe his ability until he blocked their shots."

Eventually, teams decided that if they couldn't attack Manute, they wouldn't attack at all. Sacred Heart's 47-45 slowdown win in the NCAA New England Regionals remains an ache in the Purple Knights' heart to this day.

"If we played in a normal time with the shot clock, I'll always contend that if he had gotten out of the region, I don't think anyone could have beaten us," O'Reilly said. "The only way you were going to beat us was slow it down because early on, everyone tried to run with us that first time and we'd usually have great success. If they slowed it down, that was their chance."

Added Doburz: "There's no doubt in my mind they would have won the whole Division II thing if there had been a shot clock. The only times they lost was when teams slowed them down, like Sacred Heart in the regionals. But that was another era."

Almost as quickly as he arrived in Bridgeport, Bol was gone, getting selected in the second round of the 1985 NBA Draft by the Washington Bullets. He played 10 seasons with the Bullets, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat, finishing with 2,086 blocks.

Toward the end of his playing career and until his death, Bol worked tirelessly to help the Sudan recover from two decades of civil war.

And those stories, along with so many others, are what people will remember about the 7-foot-7 gentle giant called Manute.

"His size, his stature and just his unique personality and everything he stood for," O'Reilly said. "He was larger than life."